ITC develops technology innovations for land tenure security in East Africa

Sub Saharan African countries like Rwanda, Kenya and Ethiopia have an immense challenge to rapidly and cheaply map millions of unrecognized land rights in the region. Researchers of the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) of the University of Twente will work on an innovative suite of land tenure recording tools that responds to that challenge in the coming four years.

The project, its4land, combines an innovation process with emerging geospatial technologies, including smart sketchmaps, UAVs, automated feature extraction, and geocloud services, to deliver land recording services that are end-user responsive, market driven, and fit-for-purpose. The transdisciplinary work also develops supportive models for governance, capacity development, and business capitalization. Gender sensitive analysis and design is also incorporated. Established local, national, and international partnerships drive the project results beyond R&D into the commercial realm.

Led by the University of Twente, with partners from Europe and Africa, its4land has received a 3.9 million euro grant from the Horizon 2020 ICT-programme of the European Union.